a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to processes and techniques for treating wood and more particularly to processes and techniques for treating wood to give it a worn or weathered appearance.
b. Description of the Background
Wood is commonly used for framing artwork, photographs, plaques, clocks and other decorative items. Sometimes the wood is sanded and stained to provide a smooth finish with a high gloss. Some people prefer to sand the wood to make it smooth and then paint it.
A particularly attractive type of wood for use in artwork or in frames around artwork, photographs, clocks, etc. is worn or weathered wood, such as driftwood. This type of wood is very attractive because it has been naturally weathered by the environment. When wood is weathered naturally, it takes on a grooved or roughened appearance. This is because the wood includes rings or sections which are of different hardness that have been weathered at different rates as a result of exposure to the environment. The naturally occurring rings in the wood alternate between relatively hard (resulting from the cold season) and relatively soft (resulting from the warm season). During natural weathering, the soft rings are eroded away at a faster rate than the hard rings. As a result, the hard rings form ridges and the softer rings are weathered and worn away to leave grooves or depressions between the hard rings.
Because the supply of naturally occurring driftwood is limited, it would be advantageous to have a technique for modifying ordinary wood to simulate the appearance of driftwood. Some have tried using the technique of sandblasting ordinary wood to modify its appearance. However, the result is not entirely satisfactory because the sand tends to wear away the wood in a manner such that both the hard rings and soft rings are worn down. Although a rough surface remains, it does not simulate driftwood in appearance. The sand also tends to pit the wood in an undesirable manner.
A process of using glass beads to create a weathered or worn appearance in wood is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,655, which is specifically incorporated herein by reference for all that it discloses and teaches. As disclosed in that patent, glass beads have successfully been used to abrade wood so that the soft rings are preferentially worn away leaving the harder rings to create the weathered or worn appearance. Although that process has been successfully used with glass beads, the abrasion process using strictly glass beads can be somewhat lengthy.